A man accused of murder will have to buy a police officer an iPhone and send them a selfie every hour during the day as part of novel bail conditions imposed by a New South Wales judge.

Earlier this month New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Richard Weinstein issued new bail conditions for a man charged with murder who has been on bail under virtual house arrest since January on a $5 million surety.

The man has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

The conditions require him to buy the police officer who is overseeing his case a new Apple iPhone and once provided the number for this phone, he must then send a selfie on the hour from 8am to 8pm.

He has also been ordered to turn his own iPhone’s location settings on, along with Find My iPhone, Find My network and Send Last Location Settings, so that the bail officer can see the location when they are sent the selfie.

“The Applicant is to transmit a photo of himself every hour between 8am and 8pm (inclusive) on a daily basis to the Officer in Charge once the Officer in Charge has provided the dedicated telephone number,” Weinstein said in the court order.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the applicant is to transmit a photo of himself every hour at 8am, 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm and 8pm.”

Live tracking through selfies

The combination of the selfie and the live location data aims to ensure the bail officer can tell if the accused is in the location they are meant to be according to the bail conditions.

The unique measure is required because of the sudden collapse of ankle monitoring company BailSafe in February which occurred without the knowledge of the courts, police or government.

Following this, the NSW government banned the use of ankle monitoring as a bail condition, with this to be phased out by 12 September.

In the interim, judges have attempted to find alternative methods of monitoring the whereabouts of those on bail, such as the iPhone selfie approach, while others have opted to send the accused back to prison on remand.

The state government has said that two-thirds of the defendants impacted by this have already had their bail conditions reviewed.

The selfie bail condition has been slammed by NSW Opposition police spokesperson Paul Toole, who said it sets a “dangerous precedent”.

“To be frank, this is bullshit,” Toole told The Daily Telegraph.

“To think selfies can be a form of bail is mind-boggling and just does not pass the pub test.”

Bail technologies

This is not the first time novel technologies have been tested as part of the NSW bail process.

Earlier this year Information Age revealed that plans to use automation and artificial intelligence in bail hearings had been paused in NSW due to technical roadblocks.

‘The Bail Assistant’ was meant to encourage the use of the correct bail criteria using the facts of the case, such as prior convictions, and to eventually predict the probable outcomes of granting bail.

But the model failed to incorporate all of the Bail Act’s mandatory tests and those who used it found it just as tricky to navigate, leading the NSW Judicial Commission to say that there is “no evidence of a pressing need for AI solutions”.